Ethereal

Prologue

Amisha had woken up in a strange place that morning. She was standing. Looking around the room, analyzing every detail around her, she found the door. Just as she began walking toward it, the door opened. A man who looked to be in his forties greeted her with a smile, "Hello, my name is Matthew, but you can call me Matt."

Amisha was puzzled by the strange encounter. "Hi?"

"Oh, I almost forgot to say, I am your personal counselor. Everyone has their own counselor around here, therefore you have your own counselor as well, and that would be me." Matt said confidently.

Still confused Amisha decided to ask, "Okay... so... if you're my counselor, does that mean I can ask you almost any question?"

"Yes."

"Any question?"

"Any question." He said while nodding slightly.

"Okay, how come I woke up standing?" She questioned.

"Oh, everyone here wakes up standing at first. Everyone has a different reaction toward it. You awoke like that because this is your posthumous."

Amisha blinked in confusion. "My potha-what now?"

Matt laughed. "I prefer to not say it this way but for clarity, this is what happens after your death. It sounds dark that, and that's why I and many others prefer to say, posthumous. It sounds less dreary."

"This sounds shady, who are you?"

"As I said, my name is Matthew, but you–"

"I'm not playing any games here mister. If you're here to like kill me or–" she caught a glimpse of other people walking and chatting out the doorway behind Matt. Everyone was wearing regular clothes, but you could tell which were the counselors. The counselors, like Matt, wore white suit pants with a white trench coat that went down to their knees. All paired with a pair of black combat boots. The pants were tucked into the shoes. The trench coats buttoned up in the front covering the shirt under them. Unlike the people walking next to them, the counselors did not have wings. In fact, they appeared to look more like normal people. Then Amisha looked at Matt's white and silver name tag. In bold, black letters read Counselor, and under the word, counselor, in unbolded letters, Matthew. Amisha looked at Matt awkwardly., "Oh... uh, sorry. I didn't know, sorry. I thought--"

"Oh, you did nothing wrong." He assured her, "You just didn't know. I've heard many things from many people. Someone called me an ISIS member once and with other people, many times a cult member. Being told you're practically a terrorist, not necessarily something you want to be called right after you've greeted them nicely. You're not nearly as bad as some were, as you can probably tell." Matt looked down at a white clipboard, then back up. He took a deep breath. "Anyhow, I'm supposed to help you get to your next life and to make it a good one. Right now you would be an angel."

"Really, an angel." Amisha bluntly said.

"You're an angel."

"Is that you calling me pretty or are you really calling me an angel, like the kind you would imagine with dove wings?" She used her hands to imitate a bird flying.

"Both,"

"I have wings?" She said in a surprised tone.

Matt motioned his hand toward a full-body mirror on the wall to Amisha's left. "In fact you do."

She looked at the mirror and studied the wings. "Oh my gosh, I do have wings. Wait, why don't you have wings?'

"I'm a counselor. I help people get to their next life."

"Oh. Well, if I have wings and I woke up standing and you said this was, what did you call it, my posthumous. Does that mean this is heaven?"

"You're very correct." He was still standing in the doorway.

"So if I'm in heaven, I died. How exactly did I die?"

Matt referenced a white clipboard in his arms. "You were walking to get your mail and a few people drove by and shot you. It was a drive-by shooting. It says here that you were twenty- seven years old when you died."

"Oh." She looked down.

"I truly am sorry, you were so young. What happened was very inhumane."

"Yeah. It's okay, it wasn't your fault." She looked down then up again.

Matt tried to cheer Amisha up "But, that is in the past. Let's put this all behind us, and if it's alright with you, why don't we go for a walk and I'll tell you a little about the place. I will leave that fully up to you."

Amisha smiled. "I don't see why not."